


His or Hers?

by Darsynia



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dreams, F/M, First Time, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-07
Updated: 2006-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darsynia/pseuds/Darsynia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles wishes he had the courage to tell Willow something, but he doesn't want to have to call on Ripper to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His or Hers?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Scenario Challenge.](http://community.livejournal.com/good__evil/47196.html) at [good__evil](http://community.livejournal.com/good__evil) at livejournal. I chose 'stuck on a ledge' (sort of) and 'caught in a spell' (sort of).
> 
> The challenge:  
> _Take any TWO characters from AtS and/or BTvS and put them into one of these scenarios:_
> 
> * Locked in a room  
> * Lost in a car  
> * Stuck on a ledge  
> * Stranded in a Demon Bar  
> * A day at the Magic Box  
> * Caught in a spell

"This is a dream, you know." His voice was calm, calmer than was rational, considering their predicament. It seemed to Willow as absurdly amusing that Giles would react with such detachment to being completely surrounded by hot lava with only a few square feet of solid ground to support them and no discernible means of escape.

"Isn't this taking the whole 'unflappable British guy' thing to an extreme?" she asked him in exasperation, backing away from the edge of their island in alarm when a bubble of the molten stuff popped a little too close for comfort. "If this is a dream, it's _definitely_ a nightmare," she stated emphatically, watching the bit of splattered lava cool in the place where her foot had been not ten seconds before.

"Actually, it's not," he contradicted, frowning slightly as she sent him a scathing look in response. "At least—it's not meant to be a nightmare..." Giles's voice began to trail off as he turned in a small circle, examining their surroundings—the walls of the chasm surrounding the flow of lava looked to be impossibly high, and the uneven islet of rock on which they stood didn't rank high on the 'stability' scale.

Willow's brows furrowed as she looked at him, her frustration giving way to anxiety. "Giles, we're surrounded by _lava._ I'm pretty sure there's no way to climb out even if we could _reach_ the walls, a-and I'm not really sure I can _do_ a translocation spell i-if I don't know where I am, and even if I could, I don't think I'm strong enough t-to do it for two people—"

"Willow."

She was babbling, and she knew it. "Okay, okay," she said, only hearing her name and not the tone of voice in which it was spoken. "It does have all the hallmarks of a true nightmare—certain death situation, no way to use our talents to save us—" she was going to continue, but Giles laid a gentle hand on her shoulder instead of interrupting her verbally this time. The effect was opposite to that she would have expected—she was usually so jumpy in life-or-death situations (in the back of her mind, she wondered what it must be like to consider 'certain death' as a rare occurrence), but the touch of his hand brought her spiraling fears to a halt.

"You should be quite safe," he told her in a voice that held no confidence and lent none to her. "At least, I hadn't intended there to be any real danger."

Her anxiety gave in to genuine confusion at this development. "Giles, you can't control dreams!" The second she said it, however, she became conscious of how naive she sounded. With all the powers they'd witnessed, all the magic that they'd each held and _be_held, it would be foolish to assume that something as simple as dreaming could be exempt. He seemed to sense her growing understanding, and mercifully did not correct her false assumption.

"I had expected something a little less...grandiose," he confessed, sounding a bit rueful. Giles let his hand fall from her shoulder, and Willow turned to see a strange expression on his face, something that almost resembled anticipation—with a hint of fear.

"I hate to state the obvious, but—" she paused, not entirely sure how to phrase her next statement, but when a nearby outcropping of rock released its hold on the cliff wall and plunged into the lava floe, she just blurted it out. "What in the heck made you _want_ to dream this up?" To her surprise, he blushed. Taking it as a reaction to her tactlessness, she hastened to apologize, but he waved a hand at her as he lifted his glasses from his face with the other.

"To be honest, I thought it would be easier for me to—" he broke off, absently cleaning the glasses, his fingers gentle on the lenses in the way that had always made her wonder how that felt. Giles replaced them on his face before he continued; he seemed so distracted that she would have been willing to bet that he hadn't even realized what he'd been doing. "I wanted to talk to you," he finished in a low voice, looking down and stuffing his hands into his pockets roughly.

"Okay—_many_ questions," Willow said firmly, whirling around to begin pacing (an action that she admitted didn't do much to release her tension when she could take all of four steps in any direction, with most of them heading toward Giles), "not the least of which would be...why do you think it's _your_ dream when I clearly have a free will?"

Her face immediately turned scarlet, and she could see his eyes widen slightly and a dull flush began to creep along his neck and over his ears. "T-that came out way wrong," she stammered, her blush worsening as she sought a less suggestive wording and came up empty. "I didn't mean to imply... I meant that I... well..."

"You're conscious—aware," he prompted. Willow nodded, relieved that his explanation fit what her incoherency hadn't managed to convey. Giles had been staring steadfastly into the distance, but he turned toward her as he spoke again, wearing his shy embarrassment like a cloak but meeting her eyes nonetheless. "Perhaps it's as simple as 'I like you that way.'"

She tipped her head to the side, the myriad questions she needed to ask falling away for a brief moment of clarity—he really did believe that this was _his_ dream. In the oddest way, it made sense for a shining—yet very puzzling—minute: Giles believed that she was reacting true to herself because he wanted to dream of her that way, not because she was really here and experiencing the same dream. Or was she? ...and Willow's mind descended back into confusion again.

When she'd pulled herself free of her internal observations, she found that Giles was watching her with a warm look that felt familiar and strange and exciting all at once. She felt her face beginning to turn red again, and instinctively—dream-Willow or not—she tried to cover it up by picking up the thread of questions she'd begun so unsuccessfully earlier.

"Well, if you wanted to talk to me, Giles, couldn't you have just..." He looked away from her as she trailed off, and she felt the loss of his gaze as a palpable thing. Willow started over, trying to find a way to make him look at her that way again, but instead she only managed to reclaim her earlier frustration. "I mean, did it have to be a really scary situation? And, if it did, and you really did dream this up—" she broke off as they both felt the ground shake slightly under their feet. It was only a slight tremor, and rather than frighten her further, it goaded her into indignance. He'd gone back to polishing his glasses, and Willow marched (which was to say she took two determined steps) up to him and stamped her foot, half in anger and half to call his attention to her. "—those are imaginary glasses! You don't have to clean them, and... oh! _Why_ couldn't you have chosen a hut somewhere surrounded by vampires, or something?"

Willow spoke the last of her tirade in a near-whimper; the quake from a minute before had repeated itself, and this time she could feel the rock they were stranded on shift noticeably beneath them. She reached out for balance, for comfort—and Giles pulled her to him, steadying her mentally and physically with a gentle hand on her hair and a softly spoken word in her ear.

Her arms were trapped between them; she buried her hands and face in his sweater and clung to him, rationalizing her actions as a natural reaction to the situation—and this was a dream, right? From her point of view it was _her_ dream... and it wasn't as though she hadn't dreamt of being held in his arms more times by now than she could count. Though this felt more real somehow, and Willow began to understand why Giles had told her that he preferred her 'conscious and aware' in his dream—there was a reality to dream-Giles that she wasn't sure even _she_ could conjure.

"It had to be like this, you see," he murmured in her ear, one hand still stroking her hair. She could feel his other arm circled around her body, and as he spoke she could also hear a sharp edge of fear in his tone. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, she moved her head and kissed him reassuringly, fervently, just below his heart. Willow could _feel_ his reaction—the hand at her waist tightened, pulled her closer; his breath quickened and she imagined she could detect his pulse racing under her fingertips, even through the soft thick sweater he wore.

"What did?" she asked, her voice muffled in his clothing as she breathed in his scent and resolved to research the process of influencing dreams as soon as she woke.

"I don't know if I would have the courage, otherwise," Giles said, the next words catching in his throat unspoken as she pressed another kiss to his chest, lifting herself up to rest her cheek directly over his heart. To her surprise, he slid his hand swiftly from her hair to her shoulder, applying gentle pressure so that she had to lean back to look at him.

_'Okay, maybe it really IS his dream,'_ Willow thought to herself; if she'd dreamt up this situation, he'd be kissing her, not pulling away. Except... now he was regarding her with a very serious look in his gorgeous eyes, his thumb rubbing tender circles along her collarbone. She wondered if he could feel her heartbeat racing there, and had a moment of disappointment at the thought that he might assume her heart was beating so rapidly out of fear. Something he'd said a moment earlier registered to her, and she couldn't stop herself from questioning it, even though she'd give just about anything to have him looking at her like that, under normal circumstances.

"Uh, Giles?" she began, feeling a slight tremble to his touch and knowing somehow that he was every bit as frightened as she was. "Why would this situation give you _more_ courage? I mean, you're more experienced—_we're_ more experienced at killing demons and vampires than we are at..." she trailed off, looking around at the flowing molten rock and back at him, not quite meeting his eyes; "...lava." He chuckled ruefully, a low sound that reminded her all of a sudden that their bodies were _very_ close, close in a way that couldn't possibly be construed as a casual pose in any stretch of the imagination. Her hands spasmed on his chest; she was unwilling to let go but everywhere she touched him felt as though her fingertips were on fire. "I mean, I know we don't have any stakes—" she knew very well that she was overcompensating for the tension between them, but she couldn't quite help herself. "Not... that I'd be very good at staking lava..." Willow gave up.

He was laughing again, a sound without humor and full of self-mocking. His hand had stopped its heated caresses, and though they'd confused her, she missed them. She wanted to ask what was wrong, knew that she might find the answer if she looked into his eyes, but she found that splashing lava wasn't all she was afraid of in this dream. It turned out that she didn't have a choice—Giles crooked a finger beneath her chin and tipped her head back, the action itself less the reason that she met his eyes than the fact that he'd touched her that way.

He looked... sad. Frightened and sad—and angry, but not at her. The unfamiliar emotions displayed on his face made her lift her own hand to try to smooth them; Willow brushed a finger tentatively against his cheek. His eyes drifted closed for a moment, making her bold—she'd always wanted to run her hands through his hair as he did sometimes when he was flustered, but when she lifted both hands to his face, meaning to card them through his hair, she felt him move impossibly quickly and capture her wrists in an iron grip.

"What-?" For a brief second she thought she saw a glimpse of the other part of him, of Ripper, before he grimaced and it was gone.

"I can't even force myself to dream of you as you _are_," he gritted out, seeming to speak more to himself than her. Giles's grasp of her intensified, and she couldn't help the small gasp that escaped her lips, dream-pain or not. Instead of releasing her, he rested her arms against him, gentling the hold from the previous bruising squeeze. "I _refuse_ to call on that sort of strength..." he said cryptically, though she thought he might have been referring to Ripper.

Willow felt another tremor in the ground beneath them as she spoke again. "Hey, speak for yourself, mister—" she said, trying for 'endearingly lighthearted' and suspecting that it would fail miserably. "This is my dream too, remember? What do you need all this strength for anyway—I thought you just wanted to talk to me?" Impulsively, she leaned in and gave one of the hands that held hers captive a nuzzle; he rewarded her with an sharp gasp and a kiss to her temple. "It's not like I'm scary or anything," she added, realizing that she'd managed to forget, even with periodic earthquakes, that they were in a fairly dire situation.

"It's only natural to fear rejection," Giles murmured, the angle of his head against hers causing his breath to tease her ear in ways she'd only dreamt of—_'Oh, good one, Wil,'_ she told herself wryly—before. She was so distracted by his nearness and its effect on her that she nearly missed his meaning.

"Now you have me almost convinced it really _is_ your dream," she said, pulling back just far enough to look at him with the full strength of the caring she held for him. It wasn't difficult—the puzzled, bemused look on his face as she tugged a hand free and touched his face again was so adorable, so _Giles_ that she didn't think she could have held back her emotions if she'd tried. "I would never reject you," she told him softly.

Giles was full of surprises, however. "This isn't how it was supposed to go at all!" he said, a hint of desperation in his voice even as his eyes drifted toward her lips and his free hand traced the hollow of her throat. In the next moment, he wrenched himself away from her and stalked across the uneven ground to the other side of their island.

Willow couldn't help herself. "Whose dream are _you_ in?" she asked, a little puzzled and more than a little piqued that he'd not kissed her.

"I suppose I should be proud of myself," he said derisively. "I've managed to come up with a Willow that's entirely true-to-form—except for—"

"Except for what?" she interrupted angrily. "How do you know that _I_ haven't managed to come up with a perfect Giles, except that he _still_ won't—"

"This. Is. Not. _Your._ Dream." Giles spat out, emphasizing every word in a way that seemed designed to feel like a little slap.

"You're right," she said, managing to sound sulky and furious at the same time. "In _my_ dream you'd never yell at me." Willow resigned herself to the fact that all nightmare scenarios were going to turn into nightmares, no matter what, and so she decided not to hold back. "Go on—clean your glasses," she said, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow at him.

Giles's hand paused in the act of doing just that, and he played it off by running his hand through his hair just as she'd wanted to do earlier. He stood in that way for a long moment, fuming, before his eyes narrowed and he looked at her as though seeing her for the first time.

"Perhaps this isn't a total wash," he began, speculatively.

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I mean—" Giles took a step forward, and Willow raised the other eyebrow. "Perhaps the dangerous situation wasn't enough," he said, chancing another step. "Perhaps I needed you to gall me enough that I'd—"

"In that case, this whole 'calming down' thing you've got going isn't doing you any favors, is it?" Willow said stridently—and then cursed under her breath. She'd seen his fist clench in reaction, and knew that if he did renew his anger at her, in a perverse way, he'd win their little impromptu battle of wits.

He took the last step in her direction, and she mused that holding one's ground wasn't that impressive when their combined personal space just about covered their whole land mass.

"Willow—I love you."

Her jaw dropped. Instead of melting away as it should have done, her fury intensified, fed by her conviction that no matter what he claimed about this whole setup, it really _was_ her dream, and... well... that was just incredibly anticlimactic. Giles was sort of hovering in front of her with an expression that said that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and she quashed the swell of affection that made her want to focus on the words and not the strange way in which he'd said them.

"Well this is just great," she fumed, grateful without sympathy that her sarcasm wouldn't be lost on the man in front of her as she pushed past him to begin pacing in agitation.

"Not the reaction I was hoping for," he said in a quiet voice behind her.

"Me either!" she shouted, whirling around to glare at him. "Oh, _stop_ that," she said, looking down at the heaving ground. Willow stamped her foot petulantly as another quake rippled through the gorge. "Don't you _dare_," she threatened the bubbling lava, darting a quick scowl at Giles in case he considered her antics amusing.

"I'm sure that the molten rock finds you quite intimidating," he said, rather bravely. Instead of making her more upset, his flippant comment shed some light on his earlier statements.

"Is that what this is supposed to be about?" she asked, half to herself, half to him.

"Beg pardon?"

"You find me intimidating? That is, if we're going on your theory that this is, as you claim, your dream." Willow wasn't able to repress the last part, and even earned a bit of an eye-roll from Giles for it.

"In a word—yes." he looked at her steadily, his hands having drifted into his pockets. He had that warm look in his eyes again, and Willow found herself hoping it really was her dream—because if it was, she'd get to kiss him. The idyllic moment didn't last long; Giles gave her a cross look and spoke again. "I do wish you'd stop it with this 'my dream' 'your dream' business—I do happen to be rather talented with magic, and I know exactly what spell I cast to bring this whole thing about."

"—But not so talented in the 'confessing feelings' thing, right?" she prodded, allowing herself to enjoy the way his face suffused with color before goading him further: "Which, by the way, would only happen in _my_ dream, so you can stop it with the 'I'm a powerful warlock' routine." She grinned cheekily at him.

"Why, you impertinent little—" he stopped, his mind reaching past her teasing words to grasp the material point behind them. "Hang on a moment..."

"Yes?" Willow prompted, walking toward him in what she hoped was a confident strut. "Tell me again," she commanded, expecting to wake up at any moment.

"I love you," Giles said, a little dazed.

"_Definitely_ my dream," she crowed, closing the gap between them to twine her arms around his neck and tip her face up for a kiss.

* * *

Willow rolled over, glad to see that she wasn't actually clutching a pillow in an embarrassing way. She wondered what had brought on such a strange dream—usually her dreams about places and people she knew were prompted by something... and while she knew very well that since Oz's departure she'd been falling farther along the path started by her schoolgirl crush on Giles, it was unusual to dream about him without having seen him the day before or deliberately evoking a particularly strong memory of him—neither of which she'd done last night. She shrugged—maybe it was as simple as a lonely Friday night and repressed memories of watching Dante's Peak.

"Mornin' Wil," Buffy said in a studied casual voice, pausing to peer at her before bustling around their dorm room gathering articles of clothing. Willow suspected that the sound of her friend entering the room might have been what woke her, but she decided not to get upset. Not only did she plan on following through dream-influencing research, but she was well-used to the old 'right when you get to what you want, you wake up' routine. Buffy seemed determined to act as though she'd been present the whole night, and as Willow sat up and stretched, she decided to take out her frustration on the Slayer—in an amusing way, of course.

"I never knew you talked in your sleep, Buffy," she said in an offhand tone, crossing her legs under the covers and staring guilelessly up at her roommate.

"I do?" the blonde replied, trying her best not to look completely confused.

"Yep," Willow said cheerfully. "I never knew you had such amorous feelings about Professor Walsh, either," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Ew. EW!" Buffy exclaimed, dropping her armful of clothes with a disgusted groan and collapsing onto her own bed. "Okay, I give—I was out with Riley all night."

"I figured," Willow said with a smirk.

* * *

Something was different, and she wasn't the only one who'd noticed. The gang was scattered in various places in Giles's living room, (with the exception of Buffy, who was out with Riley, ostensibly being coached on what to expect in the Initiative) searching for any possible connections with the number '314.' This actually meant that Willow was on her laptop doing the research, Xander and Anya were flirting, and Giles was... nervously pacing with a half-full cup of tea that Willow was completely certain he'd not taken a sip out of in nearly an hour.

"Blech!" Giles exclaimed, having just lifted his teacup absently for a sip and discovering it to be full of tepid liquid.

"Are you done pacing? Because it's making me nervous, and it makes you look like an old woman," Anya said pointedly.

"I'm sorry?" the Watcher looked up distractedly just as he was about to take yet another sip of cold tea. Willow was the closest to him, and she simply reached up and snatched the cup away at the last minute, not waiting to see his reaction before heading straight to the kitchen to put on a new kettle for him. As his kitchen area wasn't very separate from the rest of the house, she could still hear the dialogue going on in her absence.

"There something wrong?" Xander had asked.

"Clearly there is—he's been wandering around the room like a lost idiot for the past hour and a half," his girlfriend said bluntly.

"I believe the term is 'lost child,'" Giles corrected.

"Believe what you want, I—" Anya's next tactless remark was prevented by what Willow had to assume was Xander's hand on top of her lips.

"I know you're worried about Buffy and this Initiative thing—we are too," Xander said calmly, continuing atop the former demon's muffled protests; "but I'd like to think she's—"

This time, it was Giles doing the interruption. "That's not it, I'm—I'm fine, really." Willow snorted as she began to fill the container with water. He sounded as far from 'fine' as she'd ever heard him—well, ambulatory, anyway. There had been a few times when he'd come to after having been knocked out... She shook herself, mentally and physically. Now was _not_ the time to picture Giles in any other position than standing—but that was a problem now, too.

She could still see him in front of her, the eerie glow from the lava illuminating his hands as he reached out to clasp hers...

"Willow?" His voice fit perfectly in her recollection, and she continued to picture scenes from their dream. "Willow, I do believe the kettle is as full as it can get, and then some."

That hadn't been part of the script. "Oh, yikes." Willow made noises of distress as she sopped up the excess water that had been sent over the sink top and onto the floor.

"It's all right—let me do that," Giles said, reaching out to stay her frantic actions in a manner that seemed to exactly mimic his desperate grip on her arms in his? her? dream the night before. The recognition hit her a split second before he would have touched her, and she recognized the moment as one of those 'fight or flight' sorts of things; her instinct was to run away lest he see her anticipation, but instead she screwed her eyes shut and waited.

Waited, and waited some more.

Finally, Willow mustered the courage to open one eye a tiny bit to see what the holdup was. Giles was literally frozen in place, brows furrowed as he examined his own hands. He looked for all the world like someone who was attempting to remember something. She decided that flight was the superior option, and began backing away from her preoccupied companion, hoping that he wouldn't notice.

"Willow, you didn't happen to—"

"Yes?" she asked, impossible hope welling up in her chest even as she waited for him to ask her where she'd placed one of the books he'd been looking for, or whether Buffy had mentioned anything new about the Initiative... '_or whether I had a really strange dream last night..._'

"Erm... never mind," he said, turning his back on her to complete the process of making more tea.

* * *

Hours later and still she was no closer to finding out what connection the numbers '314' had with demons _or_ a secret government project—though the latter failure had more to do with the fact that... well—secret government projects rarely floated very high on the internet radar, even when the person looking had experience on where to go poking around. Willow hadn't realized it had gotten so late until she saw the glowing apple logo of her computer reflected back at her from the window—something that wouldn't have happened unless it had gotten dark outside. Suddenly self-conscious, she blinked her eyes a few times and looked around, noting the empty teacup beside her as well as the complete lack of anyone else in the room.

She traced a finger around the rim of the delicate china; she'd always loved that particular pattern, the cream-colored cup decorated with different soft shades of blue, one of which happened to be the exact color of her grandmother's living room.

"Would you like some more?" Giles asked her quietly; he stood in the doorway to the kitchen wearing a smile that made her wonder for a blissful second if she were dreaming again.

"I don't even remember getting it in the first place," she confessed, schooling her features into a careful neutrality as she stood up and resisted the urge to stretch lazily. Somehow that would feel very wrong, to do something like that in front of him, alone. Willow lifted the cup and its matching saucer admiringly, shooting Giles a happy grin as she did so. "Though, this one _is_ my favorite."

"I know," he said, simply. Something about the way he said it made her look over at him, sharply—but he had begun to sift through the papers on his desk, and she couldn't see his expression.

"Giles, did you have a—" Willow stopped just shy of the question that had been hovering in and around her all day. She'd tried, really she had—but the thought of how she'd have to explain it if she turned out to be wrong (maybe she could channel Buffy—'Oh, I had a dream where you told me you loved me, no big') made her want to run and hide before she even took the chance. _''Fight or flight' indeed,'_ she rebuked herself disgustedly.

"Have a—what?" he asked her curiously, his glasses in his hand and his hair slightly rumpled as though he'd been running his fingers through it a minute before she'd looked at him. He no longer had the slightly lost expression he'd been wearing earlier in the day, now he looked a lot more relaxed, even to the point of having the sleeves of the long sweater he wore pushed up a bit on his lower arms—_wait._

It was the same sweater he'd been wearing in her dream.

Instead of replying with 'never mind' as she'd intended, Willow reneged on her earlier decision and chose 'fight' instead. "A deja vu experience," she said blithely, walking past him into the kitchen to set the teacup down without so much as a glance in his direction. Would he follow her?

"I suppose I have, at some point in my life," Giles said from the doorway. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I think I'm about to have one." Willow tried to keep the tremor from her voice, but she could barely hear whether or not she had been successful with how quickly and loudly her heart had begun beating. Without looking at his face for fear of losing her nerve, she walked up to him purposefully and half threw herself at his chest—partly to prevent him from backing away from her and partly because she thought she knew him well enough to predict that he'd reach out to steady her. Sure enough, just as in the dream, Willow had ended up with her hands tangled in his sweater and his arm around her waist. Just as in the dream, she turned her head to kiss his chest lovingly, encouraged by the way he caught his breath, the way his free hand reached up to clutch at her shoulder.

"Did that seem familiar?" she asked him, her own breath hitching in her chest when he swallowed nervously and tried to take a step back, stumbling a little bit on the moulding of the doorway. "Of course, there are differences," she said, taking on a scholarly air as she stepped out of his loose embrace as though she didn't still feel the warmth of his body on her lips. "The most notable being the complete absence of lava..."

The choked epithet that Giles gasped out at her last statement would probably be best translated into American English as '_oh, shit!_' Willow decided.

"Such language!" she said, completing the circle she'd been pacing in the hallway and coming to stand in front of him, surprised and a little humbled by the naked fear she saw in his eyes. He really _did_ seem to find her intimidating—at least, in situations like this. He began to stammer something that sounded like an apology, but she shook her head and decided to provoke him. "You see? That's how I know that _this_ isn't a dream—in _my_ dreams," she took a step closer, watching the way his hands clenched and unclenched, "you take me in your arms..." Willow closed the gap between them, "...and tell me you love me." She reached up with both hands, wondering if he'd let her touch his face this time, or—

On cue, his hands came up to encircle her wrists. Giles's eyes searched hers; his expression shifted through bewilderment, hope, doubt, and dawning comprehension, a journey she was touched to witness. At the end of it, he again pulled her arms to his chest as he'd done in their dream, but this time he covered each of her small hands with his own.

"In your... _dreams_?" he asked her, tentatively, emphasizing the plural.

"_Dreams._" she stated emphatically. "Got a problem with it, Rupert?"

The broad smile this combative statement brought forth combined with her use of his given name was like watching the sun's rays break through a heavy cloudbank.

"What else do I get to do in these dreams, hmm?" His voice was warmly affectionate, but knowing him as she did, she could sense he was holding something back. She had an idea of what it might be, but decided to answer his question first.

"Well," Willow said in a regretful voice, "I always wake up before the kiss." She looked down, hoping he'd take the hint and tip her face up to his and kiss her senseless as a reply. He didn't. _'So much for a movie-star ending to this conversation,'_ she thought, pouting inwardly. Giles leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling with a hint of a smile on his face as he spoke.

"I always wake up before you tell me—"

"That I love you?" she prompted, throwing the full weight of her heart into her words.

His hands tightened for a moment on hers, before he lifted them both to gently kiss her fingers. Pausing, his eyes practically sparkled with mischief as he teased her, "Actually, I was going to say '...before you tell me you've finished detailing my car,' but I suppose I can make do with that."

Willow yanked her hands from his and thrust them on her hips angrily, trying unsuccessfully to glare at him without cracking a smile. "So how do I know that _this_ isn't another Giles-concocted nightmare?" she retorted spiritedly, gesturing to the two of them.

He closed his eyes for a quick second before replying, "Touche."

"Giles?" she said, the anger fading away to sadness as she began to give in to the suspicion that she was probably just dreaming again.

"What happened to 'Rupert'?" he inquired curiously, reaching out a tender hand to brush a lock of hair from her eyes. Willow smiled a little wistfully as she let her body drop back against the wall behind her.

"He's probably hovering over the Willow in the other room, trying to figure out a way to wake me up without scaring the bajeezus out of me," she sighed. With her eyes shut she missed   
the odd look he gave her—a cross between enchanted and exasperated—as he moved to place a hand on the wall at either side of her head. She didn't even open them when he leaned over and began to speak, his lips a hair's breadth from hers.

"Willow, sweet—this isn't a dream," he said softly.

"You mean, this isn't _my_ dream," she corrected with a ghost of a smile. He groaned, a sound that made her open her eyes to see how close he really was.

"You know, there's a good way to test your theory," Giles said, shifting his body closer to pin her against the wall. '_Don'twakeupdon'twakeup!_' her mind screamed when his head bent toward hers and he slid a hand into the hair at the base of her neck. His fingertips teased the tender skin there with light feathery touches as he brushed her lips with his in a similarly gentle manner. Even though they'd barely touched, the anticipation and the connection between them caused her to whimper and reach up to try to pull him closer. Immediately his movements became more purposeful; his rough fingers trailed heated caresses along her neck, the other hand coming around to cup her cheek as he kissed her deeply. Giles murmured something unintelligible when she slid a hand inside the collar of his sweater and fairly growled when she sucked on his bottom lip. She was in the process of kicking off her shoe so she could wrap a leg around him when he pulled away regretfully. Willow blushed.

"So—not a dream then," she offered lamely. "Unless it's an entirely different _kind_ of—" She decided to resist the temptation to lick the finger he placed on her lips to prevent her from finishing that particular thought. When he removed it, however, the part of her that couldn't bear awkward silences pushed her to fill the void. "So, exactly how hard was the spell in the first place? I mean, was it a 'pick up some miscellaneous ingredients from the magic shop and light some candles' kind of spell, or a 'mail-order some special stuff from that catalogue I saw in the bathroom kind of spe—"

"Tell me again," he interrupted, reminding her of her own words, his eyes dancing with mirth and a warning not to take him too literally.

"I love you," she said, her voice softening and her anxious babbling forgotten.

"Well worth the special-ordered ingredients," he deadpanned, just before he kissed her so thoroughly that she forgot to be upset at him.


End file.
